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COMM 430: Communication Research and Inquiry

How to distinguish between types of journal articles

When writing a paper or conducting academic research, you’ll come across many different types of sources, including periodical articles. Periodical articles can be comprised of news accounts, opinion, commentary, scholarly analysis, and/or reports of research findings. There are three main types of periodicals that you will encounter: scholarly/academic, trade, and popular (for the purposes of this class, we'll ignore popular periodicals.  The chart below will help you identify which type of periodical your article comes from. 

Types of periodicals

Text and chart adapted from the WSU University Libraries' How to Distinguish between types of Periodicals guide

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